A Classic Entrepreneur

In 1907, at the age of 69, Hill turned over leadership of the Great Northern to his son, Louis W. Hill. But he remained active in running his railroads and went to his office in St. Paul every day.

In May 1916, Hill became ill with an infection that quickly spread. He went into a coma and died on May 29 at the age of 77. At 2 p.m. on May 31, the time of his funeral, every train and steamship of the Great Northern came to a stop for five minutes to honor him.

Hill exhibited the classic traits of a successful entrepreneur. He diligently studied all aspects of his businesses, such as which was best for carrying track about to be laid: caboose, handcar, horse, locomotive, or passenger coach. He did all the analyses of grades and curves himself and often argued with his engineers and track foremen, demanding changes that he felt necessary. He insisted on building strong bridges made with thick granite and using the biggest locomotives and the best quality steel.

At the end of his life a reporter asked Hill to explain the reason for his success. He replied simply that it was due to hard work. That hard work earned him the title “the Empire Builder,” and at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco he was named Minnesota’s “greatest living citizen.”

Hill was remarkable because he developed an area that most people thought never could be developed. His railroads made Minnesota and the Dakotas major destinations for huge waves of immigrants. In fact, Hill sent employees to Europe to show slides of western farming in efforts to urge Scotsmen, Englishmen, Norwegians, and Swedes to settle in the Pacific northwest. As a result, more than six million acres of Montana were settled in two years. And because of Hill, the small town of Seattle, Washington, became a major international shipping port.

James Jerome Hill has rightly earned a place as one of the greatest entrepreneurs in American history.